Walker and Paredes power a four-homer night
Christian Walker sent a fastball into the Houston night in the third inning, three runs on the board, his 26th homer of the season and the 200th of his career. Six batters later the Astros were rolling. Isaac Paredes added a solo shot in the sixth. Yordan Alvarez closed the book in the eighth with a two-out blast off a hanging slider, his 41st of the year. Seven runs, three home runs, zero answers from Seattle.
It started simply enough. Jeremy Pena slapped an infield single to open the game, stole second without a throw, and scored when Alvarez lined a single to right. That hit alone carried weight: Alvarez’s 100th RBI of the season, a number he has now reached for the fourth time in his career. Paredes and Jose Altuve followed with singles of their own, loading the bases with nobody out. Houston came away with just the one run. The lineup would make up for it soon enough.
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Five arms, four hits allowed, one shutout
Cristian Javier opened on the mound and gave Houston two clean innings before groin tightness pulled him early, just one hit and two strikeouts on his line. Miguel Ullola came in and delivered two more scoreless frames, picking up the first win of his major league career in the process. Three more Astros relievers finished the job. Five pitchers, four hits, zero runs allowed across nine innings.
Seattle had no such luck opposite. Logan Gilbert lasted four innings and gave up four runs on ten hits, dropping to 12-11 on the season. The Mariners managed only Julio Rodriguez’s two singles of note and went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position, stranding nine baserunners across the night. Their offense never found the rhythm Houston’s did from the first pitch.
A tie atop the West with days to play
The math now says Houston (78-79) and Texas sit level at the top of the AL West, and the Astros hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Rangers if it comes down to that. It is a strange position for a team with a losing record to be leading a division race, but the West has been messy all year, and neither club has managed to pull away. Seattle, meanwhile, drops to 73-84 and watches the race for October slip further out of reach with the loss.
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